


Land Of Highschool and Hormones

by writingAmateur



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-16
Updated: 2015-08-23
Packaged: 2018-03-01 17:30:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2781683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingAmateur/pseuds/writingAmateur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John moves from Washington to Texas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. THIS IS MY VOICE. THIS IS WHAT IT DOES.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John's first day in Texas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! So, if you follow my work then this is all gonna seem really familiar to you! I tried this story a while ago, but I kind of lost steam for it because I didn't really have it all the way planned out from the beginning, which is not a good way to go about something you're posting online. I was just kind of meandering along trying to decide how I wanted the story to go and leaving all these trails that led to subplots that I was never going to follow through on and I got a little irritated with it because I felt like I wasn't doing this story justice. Now that I've planned a little more and gotten better at writing, I thought I might try again. There will be a lot of similar elements and some similar scenes, but there'll be a lot of differences too! As always, thanks for reading!

Your name is John Egbert and you really hate boxes. They’re everywhere! You’ve been unpacking your worldly possessions for the past three days and you’re absolutely tired of the stupid cardboard cubes. Who even made these things, anyway? Morons, that’s who. 

It doesn’t help that it’s ridiculously hot. You’re roasting, something that annoys you even more because it’s in the middle of November. It shouldn’t be seventy four degrees in winter, dammit. It’s just not right. You think longingly of Washington, where you’d be bundled up in your jackets beside a fire or in your room with hot cocoa, watching a movie. You sigh, and set to work unloading your movie collection. You’re halfway through, in the middle of putting ‘Failure to Launch’ on your movie shelf, when you hear the doorbell ring. You hop up, running down the steps and to the door with a loud, “I’ve got it!”

You pull open the door to see a boy about your age. He’s short and thin with a mop of messy black hair. His skin is starkly pale and he has dark circles under his slate-gray eyes. And he’s wearing a goddamn sweater of all things. Fucking Texas.

“Hey, so, welcome to the neighborhood or whatever the fuck people say when new people throw their shit into a new house. Dad wouldn’t let me not come to greet you, so he-fucking-llo, I’ve greeted you. Hope you got as many warm fuzzy feelings out of it as I did. I’m Karkat Vantas, I live in that shithole right there.” He practically shouts, jabbing his finger towards the house next door. You stare at him in dismay as he thrusts his hand towards you, looking expectant.

“Why are you screaming at me?” You manage, not quite succeeding at keeping the alarm out of your voice.

“I’m not screaming, I’m fucking talking. This is my voice. This is what is does.” He replies, glaring at you.

“Oh,” you mumble. You shake his hand. “I’m John Egbert.”

“Egbert? Holy shit, I don’t think I’ve ever heard a name that shouted ‘Look at me, I’m a total fucking tool!’ louder than ‘John Egbert.’ Congratulations, I think you’ve broken the record of absolute stupidity,” he says, looking disgruntled.

“Well, ‘Karkat Vantas’ isn’t much better,” you reply with narrowed eyes.

“Better than ‘Egbert,’” he replies.

“Says you,” you say.

“No shit. Thanks for reminding me that I was speaking. Holy shit, I don’t think I would have ever known I had just made noise if you hadn’t told me,” he says in mock admiration. 

“Wow, look at all these warm fuzzy feelings. Careful, you might choke on some actual pleasant emotions.” You reply dryly.

Karkat scoffs. “I’m a pleasant goddamn person. Not my fault you’re irritating as hell.”

“You... I... I’ve only said three things to you!” You shout, exasperated.

“And you’re all in my face for yelling. Jesus fuck, Egbert, can’t you regulate the fucking volume?” He grumbles, crossing his arms.

You roll your eyes. “I quit, you’re hopeless,” you tell him. He snorts, looking unperturbed.

“You enrolled in the high school, right? You don’t do that weird home school shit, right?” he demands.

“Yeah, I enrolled. I start tomorrow,” you tell him. 

“Good fucking luck. I think snails have higher IQs than most of the people in that school,” he mutters. “What’s your Pesterchum, anyway?” Pesterchum was the newest IMing client to sweep the net. You liked it the best because there are a lot of customization options.

“It’s ectoBiologist,” you tell him. It used to be ghostlyTrickster, but you changed it because you kept getting flamed by random ‘trolls’. You never figured out who was doing it.

“You know, that is exactly the lame ass username I would expect from a guy named John Egbert. Wow. There you go, living up to the standards of shitty usernames and all that it fucking entails. Congratulations, you’re a failure to humanity. At least my chumhandle has some goddamn semblance of pride and distinct not-shittiness. It’s carcinoGeneticist.”

“Dude, no, fuck you! Mine is way better than whatever that is. Wow, do you hear that? That whistling noise? That’s the wind telling you you’re wrong. Even the elements disagree, Karkat,” you reply.

He lets out a loud, long groan, tilting his head back. “I can’t. I physically give up the fucking will to live. Are you happy, John? You’ve just fucking killed all semblance of hope I had in the rest of humanity. You soul sucking jackass. I’m leaving.” He throws out his hands, and then drops them to his side, turning on his heel and stalking away.

You grin. You love making new friends.


	2. TOMORROW, WE RIDE THE VALIANT PISS COLORED STALLION

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John's first day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So! Sorry this took a while, but now that I'm on break I hope I can get another chapter or two done before it's over. :D

You sit up in your bed with a groan. You can’t sleep anymore. You’re too nervous about the day ahead. You hate going to new schools. You unplug your phone from the charger, wincing at the bright light. You try to see what time it is, but the whole screen is just a bright blur. Oh right, you forgot you were blind. You pull on your glasses and try again.

You groan. It’s five thirty in the morning. You don’t have to be at school until eight. You set your phone back on your bedside table and sit up. After groping for a moment, you manage to turn on the lamp beside your bed, illuminating your room. Your room square in shape, with your twin sized bed pushed against the corner on the far side of the door. Your desk sits on the wall adjacent to the door and your screensaver, a ball that shifts colors as it goes, lazily drifts across the screen. Your shelf of movies sits beside the door, and your walls are covered in movie posters. You have a chest of objects that are dear to you pushed in a corner near the closet. 

At least you’re finally done unpacking your room. 

You sigh and drag yourself out of bed, wandering to the bathroom near your room. Thankfully there’s one upstairs unlike your last house that only had a half bath upstairs. You shudder at the memory of having to walk all the way downstairs just for a shower.

You take as long as you can in the bathroom, washing your hair twice and shaving, although you don’t really need to just yet. You wander back to your room and spend an inordinate amount of time picking out an outfit. You eventually decide on your Ghost Buster’s shirt and your comfiest pair of jeans. When you check the clock, it’s only six thirty. 

SIGH.

You click into your Pesterchum app and open a conversation to Karkat.

EB: hey karkat! are you up yet?

CG: WHY THE EVERLOVING FUCK WOULD I BE UP RIGHT NOW, EGBERT. IT’S SIX THIRTY IN THE FUCKING MORNING; I DON’T EVEN THINK THE ROOSTER IS UP YET. IN FACT HE’S PROBABLY STILL IN THE HENHOUSE, DREAMING ABOUT FUCKALLWHATEVER LIKE NORMAL BEINGS DO AT BALLS O CLOCK IN THE MORNING. STUNNING IDEA, ISN’T IT. WHY THE HELL ARE YOU AWAKE RIGHT NOW?

EB: for someone who’s not awake, you sure replied pretty fast.

CG: SHUT THE FUCK UP. WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT?

EB: how can i shut up and tell you what i want at the same time? contradictions, dude!

CG: I SWEAR TO GOD.

You snicker to yourself and put your phone in your pocket, heading downstairs into the kitchen in search of food. You still have about forty five minutes until you need to leave. Your dad is just finishing putting eggs and bacon onto a plate for you. Perfect timing, as usual. He slides you the plate just as you sit down and you dig in. 

“Nervous?” he asks, giving you a kind smile. You smile ruefully in return and nod. He affectionately ruffles your hair. “It’ll be fine. Just be yourself and they’ll love you.”

You finish your food as your dad leaves for work. You check your phone again to see that Karkat has been messaging you. Nonstop, of course. You scroll through the wall of gray, laughing at some of his ridiculous threats. You decide to stop him before he gets an aneurism.

EB: hey, do you wanna walk to school with me?

CG: WHY THE FUCK WOULD WE WALK? YOU KNOW THERE’S A BUS, RIGHT? THAT HAS THE SOLE PURPOSE OF CARTING OUR ASSES TO HELL? 

EB: but busses are gross! besides, it’s only like a ten minute walk. 

CG: OR A FIVE SECOND RIDE. HMMMMM. WHAT A CONUNDRUM.

EB: a gross five second ride. and loud. and gross. did i mention gross? 

CG: FINE, BUT TOMORROW WE RIDE THE VALIANT PISS COLORED STALLION. 

EB: who could refuse an offer like that?

You pull on your lucky socks and your tennis shoes and then check to make sure you have everything in your bag. Just about every office supply known to man sits in your bag, so you hitch it onto your back and head out. Karkat stands at the end of your driveway, looking irritable. Surprisingly, today he wears an almost identical black sweater and gray jeans. Upon closer inspection, however, this sweater is slightly blacker than the one before and his jeans have pocket decorations. Amazing.

You walk over to him and he settles his glare on you. “About fucking time. I’ve been waiting for five minutes,” he growls.

You snort. “Then you were early. Not my fault,” you reply, grinning. You set off towards school. The next ten minutes to school pass in a blur. Karkat makes a comment on your shirt, and you both get into an argument that’s not an argument over movies. He’s arguing about how rom-coms are the superior genre and you’re arguing on the side of action romances.

You almost forget to be nervous until you’re feet hit the edge of the campus. It’s a pretty large campus with separate halls for each subject and a two-story main building that houses the study hall rooms, the lunch room and administration offices. 

Karkat walks with you to the main office to get your schedule and map. The receptionist, a short, balding man speaks in a high reedy voice that wheedles at your nerves, and you’re glad to get out of the stuffy office.

“Ugh. I hate that guy,” Karkat informs you. “I asked him for my report card once and he spent literally forty-fucking-five minutes looking me up in the system because he didn’t believe me when I said I was Karkat fucking Vantas. I’ve worked in the office before. It takes two goddamn minutes to look someone up but no, this incompetent asshole had to make six goddamn phone calls,” he complains. His rant lasts all the way to the large l-shaped lunch room. A series of round tables with chairs hooked to them sit all through the space and there are counters hooked to the wall with barstools in front of them. All in all it’s a pretty nice lunch room. Karkat leads you to a table that seats six. Four people already sit there. 

“So this is the newbie,” one girl says, grinning at you. She’s short and lean with long black hair pulled back into a messy pony tail. She has startlingly green eyes and different colored rubber bands on her fingers. “I’m Jade,” she says.

“I’m John,” you reply, offering your hand to her. She shakes your hand and Karkat rolls his eyes.

“Sit down and stop being so formal, numb nuts. Anyway, that’s Rose,” he says, gesturing to a tall and slim blonde girl with almost violet eyes, “and that’s Kanaya,” he points to a black haired girl with serious jade eyes and dark black lipstick, “and that tool over there is Dave,” he concludes, pointing at a blonde boy who looks eerily similar to Rose. You wonder if they’re related. He wears gigantic black sunglasses and a trademark smirk. His smirk widens when his name is called, and he lets out a careless, “Sup.”

What a tool.

You drop down into a seat and smile. “Hey,” you say. 

Dave gives you a long look. “Where’d you come from, anyway? You’ve got one hell of a northerner vibe," he says.

You raise a brow. “What, do we give off pheromones or something?”

“No, you’re wearing short sleeves in the winter,” he replies shrewdly.

You groan. “You’re wearing a hoodie in sixty five degree weather!”

“Shit, it’s sixty five degrees?” He frowns, tugging at the sleeves of his red hoodie.

Rose laughs softly. “My apologies about him. He doesn’t quite understand the eternal struggle of us northerners,” she says. She’s, at least, wearing something sensible. She’s got on a short sleeved shirt and a skirt. 

“You’re from the north, too?” you ask hopefully.

“I used to live in New York,” she replies. “As fate would have it, however, I was meant to live in Texas with my dear brother, David.”

“My name isn’t David. Like holy shit. It’s literally Dave. On my birth certificate. Why do you keep calling me David you crazy woman,” Dave deadpans. You get the feeling that they’ve had this argument before.

“Well, sooooooorry, we can’t all be fancy northerners who were practically birthed in snow,” Jade comments. Rose gives her a slightly disgusted look, still managing to look prim and polite, and Kanaya laughs softly.

“Anyway, John. What classes do you have?” Rose asks.

You fish the small half-sheet out of your folder, looking it over. “Uh, let’s see. Independent studies with Miss Jackson, Physics honors with Mister Kappan, Algebra two with Miss Reynolds, AP US History with Mister Vaughn, Lunch, Coding with Mister Lakes, English three with Mister Tucker, and Weightlifting with Syracuse.”

“You've got study hall with me and Rose,” Dave volunteers. “Algebra and English with me, too.”

“Great. You've got Physics with me. Get ready, John, the people in that class are even more fucking stupid than you are,” Karkat says with a look of disgust on his face. “We’ve got coding together, too.”

Kanaya grins mischievously. “Good luck. Karkat rather believes that cursing loudly and breaking the keyboard is an effective method for coding,” she informs you. Karkat turns his glare on her, his eyes narrowed. 

“Ex-fucking-scuse you. It’s not my fault the coded language is utterly fucking stupid and doesn’t like to work properly,” he snaps.

“Of course it is not,” she replies in a slightly exaggerated tone, getting a laugh from everyone but the stony faced Karkat.

He opens his mouth to reply but is cut off by the loud, ringing school bell. You flinch, looking up in surprise. The bell is one long shriek of a note, something you’re not used to at all. At your old school the bell came in the form of four short dings.

Karkat nudges your shoulder. “You’ll get used to it,” he says in an uncharacteristically sympathetic voice.

“Come on, Egbert! Time’s a tickin’ and study hall’s on the other side of campus!” Dave calls out. You realize that he’s halfway across the lunchroom already, Rose at his side. You hop up, call out a goodbye to Karkat and hurry after them.

Your first day has officially begun. 

Study hall starts off a bit slow. Your teacher, really more of a glorified baby sitter for this class period, is a scrawny woman with long blonde hair that’s pinned back in a severe pony tail. She took roll at the speed of light, barely giving you time to squeak out a ‘here!’ before jumping to the next name, then settled down at her desk. You’re pretty sure she’s playing solitaire by the sounds of card shuffling coming from her computer.

No one speaks, so you follow their lead of silence. Dave and Rose casually begin passing a notebook that seems to be full of red and purple notes. After two or three passes, Dave leans around Rose and passes the book to you. You get out your best blue pen and reply, making it a forum. It’s really fun! You learn that Dave is, indeed, a tool and that Rose is really funny, once you understand what she’s saying. You learn that Dave lives with his Bro and Rose’s mom, but he refers to her as ‘Roxy’ instead of mom, and Rose refers to Bro as ‘Dirk’ instead of ‘Bro.’ It’s all very confusing, so you don’t ask about it. You can ask Karkat to clarify later. 

Physics is a little more involved. After running around the campus for about ten minutes, staring incredulously at the really shitty map that Dave drew you, you finally managed to find the damn classroom. You walk in three minutes late and the teacher, a short and bouncy man with dark hair that looks kind of like a toupee, gives you a stern look. When you explain who you are and that you got lost, he lets out a good-natured laugh and informs you that you’ll be doing a lab today. He gives you a book and a workbook, then sends you to the last seat available. By luck, this is right behind Karkat, putting you in his lab group.

Your group sets up for the lab, a simple lab on potential spring energy. You did this back home, so you know the basics. You just drop a spring and record how far it fell. It’s not particularly difficult, but this is Texas and people are strange. One boy manages to get a black eye by pulling on the weight and releasing it in the direction of his face and Karkat manages to simultaneously break a string and put a hole in the ceiling. Mr. Kappan simply shakes his head and says he’s surprised it hadn’t gone worse.

This raises a lot of questions in your mind.

Algebra II is easy. The teacher, a short woman with straw colored hair, is extremely lax. She doesn’t care that you show up five minutes late and waves off your explanations. She tells you to sit wherever and hands you a book and a workbook. She tells you what page you’re to be working on, and you go sit next to Dave. His workbook sits on the edge of his desk, and he opts to talk to you instead. You talk about your last class, trying to fathom how someone got a black eye, and Dave talks about his last class, art. For some reason, they didn’t appreciate him drawing shitty comics in place of his actual assignment of scenery. He shows them to you, and you can’t help but laugh. They really are bad. 

AP US History is a lot harder. Your teacher is a stern older man who talks in a crisp English accent. He puts a slideshow up and lectures in a quick voice, clicking through the slides rapidly. You have to scramble to keep up with your notes. Your classmates seem nice enough, although only one talks to you. She’s tall and blonde with a bright blue streak through her bangs. She wears weird glasses that look like sunglasses with one of the lenses punched out and she has a fake arm with limited movement. Despite that, her voice is full of confidence. In fact, her confidence kind of unnerves you, but you have the feeling that it’s supposed to. She tells you her name is Vriska Serket. People have some weird ass names. 

Lunch is a welcome break. Rose, Jade, Dave and Karkat sit with you at lunch. Kanaya drifts between your table and the table that Vriska sits at. Apparently they’re friends, though the rest of the people at the table don’t seem to like Vriska. You can’t blame them—she gave you the heebie jeebies, looking at you like you were on death row, something she was very happy about.

Karkat spends most of lunch ranting about how disgusting the cafeteria food is—something you agree with. You have lunch from home but Dave buys. You have to say, it’s really pretty disgusting. When asked how he can stomach it, he simply says ‘Sixteen years of Doritos and mystery takeout.’ 

After lunch, you go to coding. The current assignment is to create a subprogram that allows the user to edit their text font and colors. You’ve played with code long enough that you think you can manage it. The teacher, a tired looking man, gives you a packet that explains the basics of coding and normal mistakes, and tells you to sit wherever. You go to sit next to Karkat, confused at why the seats on either side of him are empty, but when you draw near a boy near Karkat looks up. “I wouldn’t thit there if I were you. Karkat liketh to throw hithy fitth when thingth don’t work. Danger zone,” he says. His teeth are slightly jagged, his front teeth protruding slightly, causing him to lisp heavily. He’s lean and his skin and eye shape give you a Korean vibe. His hair is slightly messy and dark brown and his eyes are covered by red and blue shades that remind you of really shitty 3D glasses. 

Good Lord the people here are weird. 

“Hissy fits?” you ask. 

“Shut the fuck up, Sollux. I do not throw hissy fits, it is a justified outpouring of hot fucking rage at this machines unholy insubordination,” he growls. “Sit the fuck down, Egbert.”

You obediently sit down and begin to set up your login. It quickly becomes clear the Sollux wasn’t kidding. Karkat’s cussing up a storm and banging on the keyboard before you can even pull up the coding program. For some reason, it will only accept alterations if the user wants to change the text to red or blue. Sollux’s mischievous grin says he has something to do with it and you’re stifling laughter the whole class.

English sucks, even though you get to sit next to Dave. The teacher passes out ‘The Scarlet Letter,’ and you groan. You read this last year! Oh, the pains of being a transfer. The teacher falls further into your disfavor when he tells you all to read aloud in turns. Dave has a smooth reading voice, something you’re envious of. While others are reading, he mumbles commentary to you and you’re trying not to laugh out loud the whole class. Mr. Tucker keeps giving you dirty looks, but you can’t help it.

Finally, your last class is weightlifting. It takes you a while to find it, but the teacher doesn’t really mind. He gives you a gym uniform and explains that they’re doing a push the limit day. Basically, a gauge of how much more the students can lift than the last time. For you it’ll be more of a skills assessment, so you try your best. You’re pleased to see that by the end of the class you’re relatively high in the ranks. One monster, who you learn is called ‘Equius’, is number one in all of the machines. You talked to him for a couple of seconds, but he’s too sweaty and awkward for you to consider talking to him for much longer. You have a short chat with another boy, Gamzee, but you’re pretty sure he’s batshit insane. You keep to yourself pretty well after that. 

When you come out of the dressing room in your day clothes, you see Karkat, Dave and Rose waiting for you. You run over, grinning. “Hey!” you say. “What’re you guys doing here?” 

“My truck’s in the shop, so Rose and I walked today. We figured we’d walk at least part of the way home with you guys,” Dave explains. 

“So, where do you guys live?” you ask curiously.

“Few streets down from you guys. That apartment complex near the park,” Dave tells you. You nod. You’d seen the park on your way in, and it looked like a great place to sit and read or listen to music if it weren’t hotter than hell all the time.

“So wait, you live with… Your brother and Rose’s mom, yeah?” you check. It’s still a little confusing for you. 

Rose gives you a sympathetic smile. “Yes. Our familial connections are a little strange. Dave and his brother have different mothers, so Dave’s brother is eighteen years older than him. Dave’s brother is my father, but after Dave’s parents died, Dave’s brother adopted him,” she explained. 

You frown, trying to wrap your head around it. “Right. So. Brother and sister. Got it,” you say. 

Karkat snorts. “No, you don’t. I still don’t even get it.”

You laugh. “Well, anyway. How was your day?” you ask. 

“You were there for most of it. Same boring shit, different day," Dave says.

“I rather enjoyed my day. We got assigned a fantasy writing prompt,” says Rose, smiling lightly.

“Oh, God. Do you hear that, guys? That’s the sound of gay wizard plots, bursting onto this plane of reality via Rose’s fucked up brain. Alert the military, we’ve got a code g for gay crisis here,” Dave says, looking alarmed. “No, seriously, I swear to God if you name another one of them after me, I’ll piss on everything you love. Everything. Even Vodka Mutini,” he threatens.

“You know, one could say that threat signifies an animalistic, patriarchal need to mark your territory. Also, my cat would not appreciate being doused,” she replies.

“You have a cat named Vodka Mutini?” you ask. 

Rose gives you an enigmatic smile before pointing. “We’re here,” she points out. She and Dave head off, calling goodbyes over their shoulders. You and Karkat head to your street, idly chatting about the rest of your day. When you mention Gamzee, he tenses up slightly. When you ask him about it, he just rolls his eyes and tells you to mind you own business before stomping off to his house, muttering something about stupid clowns.

Confused and nonplussed, you head into the house. Your dad is lounging on the couch, reading a book titled ‘Fantastic Businessmen and Where to Find them.’ He looks up expectantly when you walk in. 

“How was your first day?” he asks. 

After a long moment of consideration, you decide only one word covers it accurately. “Well, it was certainly interesting.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I know Dave and Rose's family is super complicated but basically it became a series of 'Okay but that doesn't make sense because of this. Then this would work. Then maybe that would work. Okay, maybe if this happened then this would work.' Basically a whole process ended with what I came up with, just in case you were like 'This doesn't make any sense, Lyla, why would you do this to us? D:' Basically I just wanted them to live together with a solid reason that wasn't 'IDK we just do'


	3. movie night!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Movie night at the Stri-Londe place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this has taken so long, guys! I just couldn't figure out an end to this chapter. :/

Your first week passes in a flash. You get familiar with your classes and the people in them pretty quickly. More importantly, you get more familiar with your new friends! You learn that Karkat lives alone with his worrier Dad. You also learn that Jade lived with her Grandpa, but he died shortly after she turned eighteen, leaving the house to her. This is also how you learn that Jade is a senior. It also turns out that she’s completely brilliant. She’d been given a billion opportunities to jump right into college, but she said she didn’t want to skip ahead. She wanted to experience high school as it was meant to be experienced, then go to college. She modestly told you that she has her pick of colleges to attend, but she’s not quite set on one yet.

You learn that Kanaya seems to be fond of Rose, even though she seems to be dating Vriska? You’re still not really sure what’s going on there. You also learn from Dave that Karkat was once friends with Gamzee, but it didn’t go well. He refused to say anything else on the matter and told you that you’d have to find it out from Karkat. Bro code and all that.

But finally, it’s Friday. Your stressful first week is almost over, and you’ll have the weekend to breathe. During study hall, Dave leans around Rose to pass you the notebook. You’d just started on a new notebook, supplied by Dave. It had adorable kittens on the cover, for irony’s sake.

_you down for movie night tonight_

_sure. what kind of movies?_

_i dunno whatever karkat brings i guess_

Rose slides the notebook over to her desk before you can think of a reply—probably thanks to your confused expression.

_We hold a movie night every Friday at one of our respective houses. Each of us gets to pick the movies shown that night in turn—I usually pick psychological thrillers, David picks whatever is number one on the ‘Worst Movies of the Year’ list, etc. Karkat usually brings rom-coms. Next week you may choose the selection._

Oh. Oh, yes.

_awesome! i have the perfect movie list in mind. :D_

You bounce impatiently though the rest of your classes. You can’t wait to have a movie night with your new friends! And! It’s going to be at Dave’s house! You get to see where Dave lives!!

To make everything better, Dave tells you during English that they’ll pick you up outside weightlifting so you can all walk there together. His car is still in the shop, so you don’t get to see his vehicle yet. You keep imagining him in a huge candy red jeep with the big monster truck tires. You’re not sure why, but it just fits in your head.

After sixth, you practically run from weightlifting, nearly slamming into Equius on your way out. He still scares you half to death, even though he’s never been mean to you. You come out of weight lifting, grinning when you spot your friends, sans Kanaya and Jade. You make a beeline towards them. There’s a moment of startled silence when you walk up and your grin falters.

“Guys?” you ask.

“What the fuck, Egbert? Who the hell said you were allowed to have muscles?” Karkat asks, glaring at you.

You look down, confused, and realize you’re still shirtless. After a couple of days of working out, you realized that most of the guys shucked their shirts off a couple of minutes in and no one ever said anything to them. This was the first day you tried it and you guess you forgot to put it back on. You blush slightly. You used to be big into track and field; your specialty was shot put. You guess you do have a pretty good set of muscles.

“Damn, Egbert,” Dave comments, giving you a conspicuous look-over. You roll your eyes.

“Down, boy,” you reply. You’re not really sure why this doesn’t make you uncomfortable. At your old school you would have shuffled into the locker room and worn turtlenecks for the rest of your life if a guy looked at you like Dave did. You guess you don’t really mind because… well, it’s Dave!

You laugh and head off to change into your street clothes. It doesn’t take you long to pull on your jeans and t-shirt. You pull on your scruffy black tennis shoes and head back out only to see Karkat and Dave rolling around on the ground, kicking up dirt and grass. You give an incredulous look at Rose, who’s smiling slightly.

“Karkat seems to be rather opposed to people touching his hair,” she explains. You snort. You walk over, waiting a moment for the perfect opportunity. Dave swings Karkat around, trying to pin him, and you quickly lean down, grabbing Karkat under his arms and lifting him straight up. Karkat’s lighter than you expected, so you hold him away from your body with ease. His feet dangle a couple of inches off the ground and he wiggles, trying to get away from you.

“Dave, stop teasing the children,” you chide. He’s practically wheezing with laughter, sitting up in the dirt, so he doesn’t reply to you.

“Oh goddamit, you put me down! I am not a child! I am a fucking man and I will fucking—OW!” He squirms violently and falls out of your grip. He lands in a heap on the ground, grumbling cusswords. “You did that on purpose!” he bites out, giving you a glare that promises homicide.

You and Dave are both howling with laughter and you barely manage to tell him, “Dude no! I had you, you jumped!”

He shoves to his feet, glowering. “Ugh. Come on fuckfaces, you better be glad I’m gracing your presence for movie night.” He stalks off with a wounded air, somewhat marred by the fact that grass is sticking out of his messier-than-usual hair. You hurry over to him and start picking it out. Despite what Rose said, he lets you do so even though his scowl deepens.

You brush the grass off of his back and he mutters something about you being a mother hen. You laugh, bumping his shoulder with your own and he rolls his eyes.

Dave and Rose catch up. “Where are Jade and Kanaya?” you ask.

“Jade’ll meet us there. She drove to school today,” Dave tells you.

“Kanaya cannot make it this evening,” Rose says. Something in her voice makes you turn to look at her. Her face is perfectly composed, but her shoulders are just a little bit tense. You feel an unexpected rush of protective feelings.

“She had, ah... better plans, it would seem,” she explains. Dave shakes his head, and then tosses an arm around Rose.

“No big. We’ve got the fun half of the RoseKan Clan anyway,” he says.

Her lips twitch in a smile. “Exactly how long have you been waiting to use that one?” she asks.

“Let’s see, when did we meet Kanaya?” he asks seriously. She chuckles reluctantly and you all head towards their house. You talk casually with Dave and Karkat. Rose doesn’t contribute much, still lost in thought. When you arrive at the apartment building, you see Jade standing next to a _huge_ Harley. Her helmet sits under her arm, propped up on her hip. She spots your trio and grins widely, hurrying over to greet you. She gives Dave a stern look.

“Did you warn him, yet?” she asks.

“Warn me about what?” you ask, concerned.

“Right, you’ve never been to my house before. Warning number one: my bro is weird as fuck. He’ll probably breeze in and out a few times, but he shouldn’t bother us too much. Warning number two: for the love of God, don’t open the fridge. Ever. Warning number three: don’t take the puppets too seriously. In fact, avoid gazes. Warning number four: Rose’s mom will probably fawn over you for a while before passing out in her room. Be prepared,” he says seriously, his hands on your shoulders.

“Uh… puppets?” you ask.

“Avoid gazes. Very important.” Dave lets go of your shoulders and turns, walking towards the main door of the building.

“Right,” you reply, a bit apprehensively. They lead you into the complex and you all head up the stairs. The elevator’s been broken since they moved there, so of course, Dave lives on the very top floor.

Dave and Jade hop up the steps quickly, taking them two at a time in a sort of race that Jade only just loses. Rose steps up them carefully, her hand on the rail, and Karkat brings up the rear, stomping up the steps irritably, swearing at them under his breath.

When you get to the top, Karkat’s wheezing and you and Jade are a little out of breath. Rose and Dave look pristine. You frown. “You guys are inhuman.”

Dave smirks. “I have been compared to a Greek God on more than one occasion.”

“By... yourself... maybe,” Karkat wheezes.

“I take offense to that,” Dave replies mildly.

“Good.”

You walk down a hallway, pausing in front of door 812. Dave raps on the door 3 times in quick succession and then sticks his key in the lock.

“The boys like to challenge each other to sparring matches. That’s his way of saying we have company,” Rose explains in response to your curious look.

“Oh,” you murmur, trying to picture a fight between Dave and his mystery brother. You can’t think of anything but two equally dorky boys flailing at each other.

You follow Dave inside, looking around with interest. The apartment is pretty close to what you expected. There’s a large living room area that leads uninterrupted into a kitchen. You see a hallway branching from the livingroom with four doors. You assume that these are all of the Stri-Londe rooms plus a bathroom.

Before you can take in much more than the obvious structure, however, it comes to your attention that Dave wasn’t kidding about the puppets. They’re _everywhere._ All of them seem to have severe cases of phallic noses and plush rumps. You look up at Dave, your face no doubt showing all of your confusion. He flutters his hands in an ‘I know, I know’ sort of way and heads for the gigantic television, perched on an entertainment center with almost every game system known to man along with three bookshelves loaded down with what looks like every shitty game known to man.

Dave turns on the television and the Xbox. “You guys want snacks?” he asks, looking back. “Got Pepsi, Cola, Orange Crush and water for drinks and then… lemme see… Oreos, popcorn and… potato chips.”

“Oreos and Pepsi!” you declare, finding a seat dead center on the sofa-futon.

Dave smirks. “Glad you’re not shy. Although it’s a shame you have such a shitty taste in drinks,” he laments playfully.

“Oi. No cussing in the house, brat,” a deep voice says from just behind you, making you jump. You look back so fast you nearly crick your neck, but there’s no one there. You look back to Dave only to see a tall blonde man standing beside him with a rogueish grin on his lips. He has huge triangular shades that cover most of his face and you can only assume that this is Dave’s brother. “Sup, newbie,” he greets, waving a gloved hand at you.

“Sup, Bro,” you reply, waving back. He snorts, giving Dave a look. Dave gives him a mutinous look in return and Bro holds his hands up in surrender.

“Just came to check up on you kids. If you need anything, feel free to make Dave do it,” he says, tipping his head to the right in what you think might be his approximation of a wink. Good lord, they’re so similar it’s scary.

Bro takes a step then practically disappears, shooting down the hall. You would have missed it had you even blinked.

Jade snickers at your dumbfounded expression. “Yes. He _is_ always like that,” she informs you.

“Weird as fuck,” Karkat clarifies unnecessarily. “Anyway, are you fuckers prepared for the majesty that is my movie list?” he asks, standing up importantly. You can’t help but grin as he practically struts towards the Xbox.

A few minutes later and you find yourself comfortably smooshed between Rose and Dave. Karkat sits on the other side of Dave, and Jade on the other side of Rose. You have the bowl of popcorn in your lap, as you’re in the middle, and the other snacks circulate as needed. Various drinks litter the coffee table. For your movie, Karkat picked out _50 First Dates._ You’ve never actually seen it before. Karkat looked mortally offended when you told him of this fact and popped the disk in almost immediately.

As the movie plays, Dave takes to openly criticizing the movie. Jade joins in, tossing in her input while Karkat vehemently defends the movie. You’ve just arrived at the part where Henry realizes that Lucy _does_ remember him in her own way and turns around the boat when you feel your hip vibrate. You make an automatic gesture towards your pocket despite the fact that your phone has never once been in your left pocket. Rose waves you off, pulling her own purple iPhone out of her pocket. Her lips turn down into a frown and she taps out a reply.

A moment later, the phone buzzes again. You glance over, accidentally-but-totally-on-purpose reading the text over her shoulder.

_I do not know if now is the best time, Kanaya. We are in the middle of a movie, as you well know._

_I Do Know_

_That Is Part Of The Reason I Wished To Stop By_

_I Miss Movie Night Rather More Than I Thought I Would_

_It seems you should have made an appearance to begin with, then._

_We Are Coming Up The Stairs_

Rose makes an impatient noise in the back of her throat. “Kanaya is _apparently_ taking it upon herself to visit. Unfortunately she is bringing… company with her.”

Karkat drops his head back against the couch, letting out a long drawn out groan of exasperation as he pauses the TV. “Who?”

“Terezi and Vriska,” mutters Rose.

“Oh, fuck that. Tell her to go away,” Dave says.

“She’s already coming up the—“

_Knock knock-knock knock knock._

_Knock knock._

Jade sighs. “I’ll get it,” she mutters, getting to her feet. She walks over to the door yanking it open. You twist around in your seat and see Vriska and another girl you’ve never seen. She’s short and solid-looking with short ginger hair. You assume this is ‘Terezi.’

“Feel free to go away,” Jade says cheerfully.

Vriska snorts, her eyes landing on you. “Oh, hello John,” she says, a grin on her face. It’s not a pleasant grin, it’s one that shows off too many teeth and reminds you vaguely of a shark.

Dave looks at you, his brow furrowing and you realize you actually shuddered slightly.

“How do you know John?” he demands, turning his gaze on her as she muscles past Jade, followed by Terezi and a vaguely embarrassed Kanaya. Terezi’s arm swings out and you realize she has a cane in her hand. Like for a blind person. Oh.

“We’re in History together,” you mutter.

“That’s riiiiiiiight, Johnny boy,” she says, winking at you. You flush and Dave frowns.

“Feel free to get the hell out of my house,” he tells her.

You look at Dave, opening your mouth to reply with all of a sudden you feel something press against your face. You jump back with a yelp, knocking into Dave, and look over in alarm to see Terezi standing _right fucking next to you._ She downright cackles and says, “You smell like blueberries.”

Good lord, she was legitimately sniffing you.

"Get off of him, Terezi," Karkat snapped, looking irritated.

“Oh, no, don’t tell me you still have your pathetic crush on Terezi,” Vriska drawled, pretending to look bored despite her predatory grin.

“Shut up, Vriska. I never had a crush on Terezi,” he muttered, looking miffed. “I just don’t want her to scare John shitless with her weird ass attitude.”

“Ohhhhhhhh, I see, you have a crush on _John_ then. I always knew you swung that way,” she said with disgusting laugh. Terezi snorted and Kanaya looked away, looking faintly embarrassed.

“No he doesn’t, shut the hell up, Vriska,” Dave surprised you by saying. His voice was low and cold, all traces of boredom and jest gone.

You bite your lip. This is your fault—you really should say something to defend your own honor. “Really, Vriska! If you want to watch the movie, sit down. We have plenty of room. If not, head out. You don’t _have_ to stay,” you say, trying to diffuse the situation and salvage movie night.

She scoffs. “Well, I actually didn’t want to watch a movie, but Kanaya wanted to see Lalonde.” It’s clear in her tone that she can’t see why anyone would want that, and you feel Rose tense up next to you.

“Ah, yes, because she’d much rather hang out with a psychotic convict,” Rose says in a would-be casual voice. You can hear the anger roiling beneath her words and you’re certain there’s a lot to this situation that you’re missing.

Oh, no. Oh, dear. This is quickly getting out of hand. You’re desperately thinking of a way to diffuse the situation when Vriska glowers at Rose.

“At least I’m not an automaton!” Vriska snaps back. “Kanaya likes me better because I actually know how to have fun. Don’t think I haven’t noticed your pathetic crush on her, either. She thinks you’re boring, and you know it.”

The color drains out of Rose’s face and you want to hit Vriska. You’ve never had such a violent urge before and it surprises you. You look over at Kanaya, who looks alarmed by the escalation of the situation.

“That is not true,” she says carefully. Before she can continue, you hear a door open and suddenly Bro is there, looking irritated.

“What the hell is all this yellin’ about?” he asks.

Vriska shrugs. “Dunno, everyone’s getting worked up over nothing,” she says.

“They were just leaving,” Dave says slowly, looking at Vriska. His shoulders are tense, and helooks like he’s daring her to argue. “They stopped in to say hello, and now they’re leaving.”

Vriska glares at him evenly for a long moment, before nodding. “Yup. We’ve got more importantthings to do. Come on, guys,” she says, looking at Kanaya and Terezi. Terezi shrugs and walks over towards the door, and Kanaya hesitates.

“You’re welcome to stay, Kanaya,” Rose says softly.

She looks over the group for a moment, then back to Vriska, who looks impatient.

“C’mon Kanaya. We’ve got shit to do,” she snaps.

Kanaya looks at Rose once more before turning away, quickly walking out the door. Dave, who followed them to the door, slams it shut behind them.

Rose stands quickly. “I have homework to do. Good night, boys.” She walks off down the hall quickly, and enters a room you can only assume is hers.

Dave frowns, pushing his hair back from his eyes. Bro looks around, his brow furrowed in confusion.

“Was it something I said?”


	4. striders run on pure irony and awesomeness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Karkat, Dave and John go to the arcade for some lasertag and awkward jealousy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, it's been four very long months since the last chapter and I'm super sorry! I was working on my original story writing projects and it just got away from me. :C I'm getting back into this story though and I have quite a few ideas so I'm hopeful I'll update more often? Hopefully?   
> Anyway, enjoy the awkward!

You love nothing more than Saturdays. Even though you’re in a new home, your usual routine comes easily. You wake up at seven in the morning and head into the kitchen. Your father sets a plate of eggs and bacon in front of you with a smile and you smile back. “Morning!” you tell him.

“Good morning, John,” he says as he heads towards his room to get dressed. You dig in and by the time you finish, your dad is picking up his brief case and getting ready to leave.

“’Bye, Dad!” you call, heading towards the stairs. He calls out a good bye. You hop up the stairs two at a time and then hurry into your dad’s study where the piano is. There wasn’t room for it anywhere else. You pull out the piano bench, lift up the seat and pull your book of sheet music from the compartment. You set it up on the built-in stand, sit down and tap on a few keys with a grin, glad to see that the move didn’t knock it out of tune.

You play some easy tunes to warm up and then move on to the more complicated ones. You found a youtuber who converts rock and pop tunes to piano music and bought the sheet music from them. Your favorite is _Chop Suey_ because it’s insanely hard to play and you love the challenge. You’re dead in the middle, your hands flying in your best play through yet when your phone goes off.

_WHO YA GONNA CALL?_

_GHOST BUSTERS!!_

The tune bursts your concentration and your fingers tumble across the keys. You level a mutinous glare at your pajama pants pocket, debating not answering it. You decide to humor it, unlocking it with a swipe and clicking into your Pesterchum app. Karkat seems to be the perpetrator.

CG: HEY ASSWIPE, WE’RE GOING TO THE ARCADE LATER.

You raise a brow. Arcade?

EB: who’s we?

CG: MISTER NOODLE AND I, OBVIOUSLY.

CG: DUMBASS.

EB: oh shut up you know what i mean.

CG: ME, DAVE, YOU AND MAYBE ROSE. KANAYA IS SUPERBLY NOT FUCKING INVITED THANKS TO HER FUCKUP FROM LAST NIGHT.

EB: yeah, no kidding. when?

CG: WHENEVER I DECIDE TO GET THE FUCK OUT OF BED. WHICH MAY BE NEVER.

EB: okay cool. well, im practicing so im putting you on silent. shhhhh.

You put the phone on silent and set it aside, returning to the keys. You try to continue _Chop Suey_ but you realize pretty fast that you’ve lost your mojo. You groan. Dammit, Karkat. You tap out a few beginner melodies again and then flip to the song you’re composing. You start up, working on your refrain, pausing to scribble the melodies on your blank sheet music.

The next time you check your phone, you realize it’s been over an hour and a half and you’re pretty sure Karkat hasn’t paused for even a second.

CG: WHAT?

CG: DON’T PUT ME ON SILENT, YOU COME RIGHT THE FUCK BACK HERE AND TELL ME WHAT YOU’RE PRACTICING, EGBERT.

CG: I WILL COME OVER THERE AND FIND OUT FOR MYSELF, DON’T FUCKING TEST ME.

You scroll through the wall of gray text, snickering at his endless threats. Karkat cracks you up.

EB: it’s the piano! jeez! you don’t have to kill my phone!

CG: IF IT DIES FROM AN OVERLOAD OF TEXTS THEN IT’S TOO WEAK TO EXIST ANYWAY. SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST, JOHN. APPLIES TO TECHNOLOGY TOO.

EB: riiight. sure it does.

You roll your eyes and head towards the bathroom to take a shower. Karkat can hold on until then. You shower at the speed of light and hurry across the hall to your room. You look through your clothes critically for a long time before deciding on a dark blue polo and dark-wash jeans that hug but still allow movement. You towel dry your hair and pull on your glasses, sighing in relief when you can finally see properly.

You check your phone revealing the time as eleven in the morning. You have a heap of pesters from Karkat, as well. You grin. You’ve never had such an… _involved_ friend. Sure, your friends in Washington would text you, but no one’s ever kept up such a running conversation. You don’t think you’ve said goodbye to him once since he gave you his Pesterchum. You messaged until one or both of you fell asleep and then continued your conversation in the morning in person.

CG: ARE YOU READY TO GET YOUR ASS WHUPPED IN LASER TAG, EGBERT? I’M GOING TO DEMOLISH YOU. GET YOUR ASS OUTSIDE, WE ROLL IN FIVE.

EB: you got it, commander bossy pants.

CG: I’M NOT EVEN GOING TO DIGNIFY THAT SHITSTAIN OF A MESSAGE WITH A RESPONSE.

EB: false, you just replied. that was a response, karkat.

CG: OH MY GOD I’M GOING TO RIP YOUR GODDAMN SPINE OUT.

EB: im terrified. oh no. help.

CG: JESUS FUCK, JOHN, JUST GET YOUR SKINNY ASS OUTSIDE.

EB: alright, be out in a sec.

You go through your normal list of leaving-the-house activities. You pull on your shoes and text your dad letting you know where you’ll be, then put your phone, wallet and keys in your pockets. You head out the door, locking it behind you. You spot Karkat standing next to your mailbox, glaring at his phone. His dark hair spills into his face and he shoves it back, looking annoyed. You grin. He’s so short for so much anger.

You walk over and he glances up. “About fuckin’ time. Come on, let’s go pick up the asshole,” he says. You fall into step with him, heading towards Dave’s house.

“Is Rose coming?” you ask, hoping she is.

Karkat shakes his head. “She said she had a ‘dreadful headache and simply could not make it,’” he replies in an awful falsetto imitation of Rose’s voice. “What I wouldn’t give to punch Vriska in the face,” he mutters, his voice lower than you’ve ever heard it. It’s almost at a normal volume.

You raise a brow. “I didn’t know your voice could even get quiet,” you say in amazement.

He rolls his eyes. “Shut the fuck up.”

You bicker with him all the way to Dave’s apartment building. You don’t speak on the way up the stairs, too busy wheezing as you scale _eight_ stories of steps.

_UGH._

When you arrive at Dave’s door, Karkat slams his fist against the door in some semblance of a knock. You’re surprised the door doesn’t explode inward from the impact.

Bro answers the door almost immediately, brows raised. “Holy hell, kid. You wanna knock a little harder?” he asks sarcastically. Karkat flips him off and Bro returns the favor with a smirk. “Let me go get Dave.” He turns back into the apartment and disappears. There’s a loud crash and a string of cusswords from Dave. After a moment and more cussing, Dave appears at the door, looking disheveled. He hops out the door, shouts a good bye into the house and shuts it behind him.

“Bastard,” he mutters under his breath. He shoots you a grin, then holds up a set of car keys. “I’ll drive,” he says.

“Oh, _God_.” Karkat visibly pales, looking at him in horror. “Good fucking bye, world. I’m going to die before I hit drinking age,” he says.

“He can’t be that bad of a driver!” you disagree.

Oh God, you’ve never been so wrong.

First of all, Dave doesn’t drive a jeep. It’s a beaten up pick-up truck, although you did get the candy red color right. Second of all, Dave can’t drive. You’re pretty sure he never learned how to drive. You’re still not sure how he got his license. You think he might have just broken into a DMV and made one for himself. He takes everything on the road as a ‘suggestion.’ Everything. Speed bumps, speed limits, the lines of his lanes, red lights. All polite suggestions which he chooses to ignore.

You scream at the top of your lungs, clinging to the door for dear life while Karkat sits in the back with his head in his hands, apparently accepting his fate. You arrive at the arcade—miraculously alive—and you leap out of the vehicle, hugging the ground for a moment. “I LIIIIVVVEE,” you cry, only half-joking.

Dave hops out of the car, grinning. “Please. I wasn’t even going fast that time,” he says. You stare. The needle didn’t go under 85 the entire time you were in the truck.

You hop up and head towards the arcade, not dignifying his lie with a response. Karkat stumbles after you, uncharacteristically silent. You step at the doors and they slide open, so you head inside. You stop inside the door, your eyes wide. “This place is HUGE!” you shout, looking around in amazement. Opening the door brings you into a huge hall with branch off ‘rooms’. The rooms are huge and without walls so you can see inside them from the front entrance, separating all of their games into categories. There’s a room for retro games, racing games, shoot em ups, any game you can think of. At the back of the hall, next to a huge snack bar, there’s a neon light that says ‘Laser Tag’ above a door.

“Oh, yes. Laser tag! Laser tag we have to!” you say, grabbing Dave’s sleeve.

He smiles his Dave smile, the one that looks like a smirk but you know is as close to genuine as he gets. “Yes, yes we do,” he agrees.

Being 11:10 on a Saturday, there aren’t many people around yet. You’re sure later on it will get crowded, but right now there’s very few people for the space. You hurry towards laser tag, dragging Dave in tow. Karkat follows, talking about how he’s ‘totally going to beat you’ and ‘you might as well give up now.’ You give a backwards glance as you stop at the door, grinning at Karkat’s pose. He’s got his hands on his hips and a petulant expression to convey exactly how hard your asses will be kicked.

“Good luck catching me,” you taunt, grinning. Dave returns from the counter with an attendant, having paid for the laser tag.

“Good luck evading me, Egbert.” Dave’s return grin is positively evil. Shit. You’d forgotten that he’s been in track since middle school. He held all of the speed records at your school and still claims he hadn’t been trying his best.

You hold onto your bravado. “I don’t need luck to evade you,” you reply, determined.

He snorts and the attendant begins handing out the vests. You have a bit of trouble with yours and Dave moves into help, buckling some of the buckles for you. Looking irritated, Karkat steps forward. “You’re doing it wrong, this one goes here, fuckwad,” Karkat says, swatting Dave’s hand out of the way.

“No, it does. It goes here,” Dave disagrees, swatting him back. You frown, awkwardly squished between their catfight.

“You’re both wrong, it goes here,” the attendant interrupts, looking bored. She brushes their hands out of the way and clips the vest in all of three seconds. “I trust you know how to work the gun,” she says dryly. Her nametag reads ‘Aradia,’ and you grin at her.

“Yeah, I can figure out that bit.” You unhook the gun and familiarize yourself with the trigger area. Aradia taps a few buttons on a computer near the door and pushes the door open.

“Alright you three. You’ll have ten minutes to defeat each other as much as possible. If you’re hit, your vest will take five seconds to boot up again. No hitting each other with the guns, no body slams and no fist fights. Your tickets will be printed with your score and your vest name at the end of the match. You have fifteen seconds to find a hiding place and then your ten minutes will begin. Any questions?” Aradia rattles off the speech as though she’s given it a million times before. She doesn’t wait to see if you have any questions. “Good. Go inside.”

Dave, Karkat and you head inside. The room is a large space with half-walls and pillars to hide behind. The floor is covered by black carpet to muffle your steps, but the walls and the pillars are splattered with glow in the dark designs. A loud voice is counting down from fifteen, ticking away at your hiding time.

“Twelve… Eleven… Ten…”

You run towards the back of the room, swinging around a pillar and heading back towards the left to throw them off.

“Nine… Eight… Seven…”

You duck behind a half-wall and Karkat jogs right past you, not seeing you.

“Six… Five… Four… Three… Two… One.”

Techno music blasts through the speakers, signaling the beginning of the game. Your vest boots up with an electric noise and glows blue. You head off in the direction Karkat went, gun at the ready. You see a white light retreating around a pillar and you dive around the other side, surprising him.

“Shit!” He groans as his vest powers down.

Almost immediately, your vest powers down. You swing around just in time to see Dave darting around the corner with an evil laugh, his vest glowing red.

Let the games begin!

You have to admit, Dave is REALLY good. You manage to get him a couple of times, usually by hanging around Karkat until Dave gets him, then jumping out and shooting Dave. You occasionally get him first on sheer luck. Karkat doesn’t get either of you, although it doesn’t stop him from shooting at the air in the hopes of one of you walking in front of his gun.

Dave is competitive but not mean spirited. Karkat mainly cusses a lot and flails his gun around. When the game is over, you all tumble out of the room. Karkat looks cross and sweaty and Dave, of course, looks pristine, giving you that smirk. You roll your eyes, breathing hard from the exertion. Aradia hands you your scores and you groan. Dave beat you by three kills. Three!

Dave whoops, holding his hands up in victory. “Who is the master? Spoiler alert, it’s me. Please, don’t hurt your back on your way to kissing my shoes.”

“I’ll tell you where you can shove your shoe,” Karkat grumbles, looking mutinous with his whopping zero kills.

Dave snorts. “Don’t hate me ‘cuz you ain’t me.”

“Oh, please. You guys teamed up on me! I could’ve won if you bastards weren’t camping all over the place,” he complains, throwing his hands in the air.

You roll your eyes. “Alright, Karkat how about this. You and me against him,” you say, pulling out money for another game. You hand it to Aradia and she walks back to the computer, tapping a few buttons.

“Hell yes, we’ll absolutely fuckin’ destroy you,” Karkat says, grinning.

“Your defeat’ll be that much more humiliating,” Dave deadpans.

Aradia pulls open the door once more. “Dave’s red, Karkat and newbie are blue. Have fun,” she says, gesturing them in carelessly.

“Wait, you guys know each other?” you ask as you walk into the room again.

“She goes to our school, John. She’s in our homeroom,” Dave says, giving you a quizzical look.

“Oh. Shit,” you say, trying to remember her. You have a vague idea that she sits somewhere in the back of the class with the boy from your coding class. Solo? Sollen? Sollux? There you go, that was it.

The door swings shut and the counting begins. Dave darts off, gone in the time it takes you to blink. Karkat grabs your hand and runs towards the back right corner. You go with him, quickly overtaking him and leading him around a wall. You pull him down and wait for the time to begin. The moment it hits zero, your vests boot up and… ever so quietly, you hear Dave’s boot up somewhere in the maze. The music begins and you lead Karkat towards where you heard the noise.

Suddenly, Karkat’s vest powers down and you swing around, barely getting your gun up in time to clip Dave’s back as he darts behind a pillar. He groans, letting out something that sounds like ‘Rude!’ Karkat high-fives you and you lead him away to find another hiding spot. This time, your vest goes out first and Karkat swings around, nearly smacking you in the face with the gun. You drop to the ground and Karkat shoots wildly. Unbelievably, you hear a vest power down and Karkat’s whoop of triumph.

Dave cusses loudly. “Sorry, John! Karkat shot me! This is the last time I can be seen in public!”

“That’s a shame!” you tell him, grinning. You high-five Karkat and run off to find your next hiding place.

The match goes on in a similar fashion. Dave shoots Karkat first and you get him in return. It becomes high victory for you and Dave to shoot each other and, in your case, high victory not to get smacked in the face by Karkat’s flailing gun. One time Karkat hit you in the jaw with the gun and in the resulting fall, Dave got you both at once.

The three of you tumble out of the laser tag room when the game ends, you and Dave laughing and Karkat looking miffed.

“Did you really have to do a spy roll, John?” Dave asks, his laughter subsiding. “A _spy roll_?”

“I got you, didn’t I?” You reply, grinning smugly.

“Only because I was too busy laughing at you for doing a _spy roll_ ,” he says, laughing again.

Karkat holds up the scores, grinning. “I got you twice, fucker,” he says, waving his receipt in Dave’s face victoriously.

“Twice to my… let’s see… twenty-eight,” Dave replies, raising a brow.

“Oh, come on Dave, let him have that one. It was impressive,” you say in your partner’s defense. You look at the ticket and groan. Dammit, Dave won by two measly little shots!

“You wanna go again?” Dave asks, grinning confidently. You shake your head.

“Nah, I’m roasting. Let’s go play some stationary games,” you say, pulling off your vest and returning it to the hooks. Aradia hooks the vests up to a charger.

“Have a great day,” Aradia deadpans.

You grin in response and head off, grabbing Dave and Karkat by the sleeve so you can lead them where you want to go. You find a zombie shoot em up game that looks really cool, but it only has two players. Oh, the woes of hanging out in threes. “You and Karkat first, I’ll play winner!” you declare before anyone can argue. Dave and Karkat step up on the platform, picking up the cool plastic guns and you stick in quarters. The game starts up pretty predictably, giving a quick backstory before putting them on an abandoned highway.

Karkat’s much better at this game—you think it has something to do with the fact that all of the enemies are in front of him whereas he couldn’t find you or Dave in the lasertag room. His score rockets and Dave isn’t far behind. Both of them look highly serious as they shoot the zombies and you’re actually a little concerned. They’re acting like something serious is on the line if they win or not. Maybe they’re always serious. Who knows. They keep shooting each other triumphant looks as their score passes the other’s.

“Holy mother of God I didn’t know you guys were experts at this game,” you say in dismay. They’ve been playing for about ten minutes now—you expected someone to have been eaten by now considering the size of the hordes coming at them. Your voice startles Dave and he gets eaten quickly. He groans.

“Haha! I win!” Karkat proclaims.

“That was Egbert interference, I call cheats,” Dave says, looking cross. You snort.

“Nope, Karkat won fair and square. Hand over the gun, cool guy,” you say, holding out your hand expectantly. He rolls his eyes in that special way of his, where he cocks his hip to the side and _radiates_ sass. You roll your eyes back as he hands you the gun. You hop onto the platform, hip bumping him to the side. He hops off, sticking out his tongue at you and then steps back into his spectator’s spot. Karkat looks pleased as he puts in the quarters for the game and it starts again in the same way.

You’re kind of awful at this game. You keep forgetting to reload, or your aim wanders off screen and you get eaten in a grand total of about three minutes. Karkat gives you an incredulous look.

“Wow, you really suck ass, Egbert,” he tells you.

“Blah blah this game sucks away,” you reply crossly. You hop off the platform and head off in search of another game, ignoring Dave’s rambling criticism about how if the world were inundated by zombies you would get eaten in seconds and he’d have to swing in on a vine and save you or something. You’re not really paying attention until he starts yodeling like Tarzan. You swat him and tell him to hush. It’s almost 11:45. The arcade is more populated now and people are giving him weird looks. He smirks in response.

You swing around the corner into another room and freeze, your eyes on the flashing lights that can only signify one game.

Dance. Dance. Revolution.

There is no way you’re not playing that.

“There is no way I’m playing that,” Karkat scoffs in response to your exclamation.

“But. But,” you say, pushing out your lower lip in a pout.

“No. Hell no. You are not persuading me with puppy dog eyes, Egbert so just put that lip back where it came from or so fuckin’ help me,” he says, giving you a severe look. You swing around, unleashing your full puppy dog eyes on Dave instead. You even grab his sleeve, giving it a pathetic tug.

“Pleeeeeeeeease?” you ask.

You see a flash of something in his face before he sighs in defeat. “Dammit. Alright, Egbert. Let’s do this shit.”

You cheer and run over to the game, jumping onto the platform with a little too much enthusiasm. You don’t quite make it and your foot hits the edge awkwardly and you slip backwards, about to fall on your ass. Suddenly, Dave is there and stretching out an arm to catch you. You grab his shirt in an effort to stop your descent and Dave’s face ends up an inch from your own.

You blink. “Woah.”

Dave’s face tinges pink and he immediately straightens you back to your feet. “Watch what you’re doin', John,” he says, his southern accent more pronounced than usual.

You stand there with a blank expression for a moment and then look over at Karkat who looks like he’s just swallowed a lemon, glaring at Dave. You shake your head and turn back to the game. “Come on, Dave! Let’s do this!” you say, brushing off the awkward moment. You stick some quarters in the game and quickly select an upbeat Japanese song. You switch the difficulty to expert with pride.

Dave gives you a Look and switches his to expert as well. You grin and start playing. You realize pretty quickly that Dave is way too good at this game. You should have expected it. Like you said before, he’s really fast and he has really good reflexes. You’re only this good because you played a lot at a small arcade at home before you moved. But not so much that you have the words to this song memorized, of course. You’re not singing along either. Definitely not.

“How the fuck are you singing in Japanese, Egbert? More importantly, why the fuck?” Karkat asks, leaning against the bar behind you.

Okay, maybe you were singing a bit.

“It’s a good song!” you say in your defense.

“It is,” Dave agrees. You grin at him and he grins back.

“You’re missing steps,” Karkat points out, sounding irritated.

“Shit!” You jump back into action, suddenly aware that you stopped for the short exchange. It takes you a second, but you catch back up. Dave’s inexperience with the game works in your favor, and you overtake him just before the song ends, leaving you victorious by only a couple of steps. It makes the victory all the sweeter.

After a couple of other games, you all agree you’re kind of worn out. It’s almost one and the arcade is getting a little packed for your tastes, so you all head back to Dave’s truck for a death defying trick to McDonalds. He actually shot across the raised median at one point. When you ask how the hell he manages not to get arrested, he just shrugs. You decide that the cops have just given up on Striders.

He skids into a space, somehow perfectly in between the white lines and you stagger out of his car. You all head inside and head up to the counter. You stare blankly for a moment at the girl behind the counter. She’s short with wild black hair and wide olive colored eyes. The part that makes you stare, however, are the small kitten ears sticking out from her visor. For a wild moment you wonder if they’re real before you realize she just has a headband in with cat ears on them. Oooookay.

“Sup, Nepeta?” Dave asks nonchalantly.

You shoot him a look. How did he know everyone? Why does everyone know everyone here? It’s madness, you say, madness!

The cat girl grins, leaning forward luxuriously much like a cat would. “Hello, Strrrrrrrrider,” she says, her voice almost a purr. “And Karkitty! And… stranger!”

You’re still stifling laughter over ‘Karkitty’, who is giving you a very ugly look right now.

“John Egbert,” Dave supplies helpfully.

“Egbert…” she mumbles, seemingly trying to find a cat pun out of it and failing. She perks up a moment later. “Right! You’re furriends with Equius!”

Furriends, or friends for that matter, is a bit of a stretch, you think. You talked to him once. Maybe. “Er, yeah, sure,” you reply. She grins, pleased.

“Good. He needs more furriends. Anyhow, since I am a purrfessional burgeria worker, what can I get you?” she asks, eyeing the line that’s beginning to form behind you.

Dave rattles off an order of two cheese burgers, a large thing of onion rings and a strawberry smoothie. Karkat orders some nuggets and you order a burger, fries and a pepsi, ever the traditionalist. Nepeta clicks in your order with practiced ease and a few more cat puns before sending you to a table with your drinks. You settle in at a round booth in the corner of the restaurant.

You’re only there for a couple of seconds before they call out your order—ah, the joys of fast food. You hop up and get the tray from the counter, then return to the table. When you come back and settle in once more, you thank Karkat and Dave for inviting you. “Thanks for inviting me, guys! It was really fun!”

Dave rolls his eyes in that special way he has. You can just FEEL the sass. “You’re our friend, John. We do things together. Kinda how it works.”

“Thanks anyway,” you say, grinning.

“You’re very fuckin welcome, Egbert. We deserve a thank you for dealing with all this dork at once. I’m drowning in it,” Karkat cuts in.

“If that’s the case, where’s my thank you from you?” he asks, holding out his hands expectantly.

“It’s up your ass, actually. I’ve got a rusty rake you can retrieve it with,” Karkat offers viciously.

“Oh my God, Karkat,” you say, lapsing into laughter.

You set to eating when you can breathe again and you watch Karkat and Dave volley insults back and forth with an unconscious ease. It’s obvious that they’ve known each other for years, and you can’t help but envy that a little. You always thought you had close friends in Washington, but ten minutes in your Texan group showed you just how wrong you were. You’ve never had friends as close to you as Karkat and Dave, and never in so short of a time!

Somewhere in the squabbling, Karkat insults Dave’s taste in music, and Dave shoots back that he can make music, therefore making him superior. This piques your interest.

“What do you play?” you ask.

Dave glances over at you, raising his brows. “Well, nothing really. I mix music mostly. You know. Deejay type stuff. Why? Do you play something?” he asks.

“Piano,” Karkat chimes in. Dave looks affronted and you think it has something to do with Karkat knowing something about you that he doesn’t.

“You any good?” Dave asks, leering at you.

“Well, I mean, I’m not pro or anything, it’s just something I do for fun, but I’ve been practicing since I was seven, so I guess I’m pretty alright,” you reply awkwardly. That’s another thing. You never really told anyone in Washington about your piano playing. It never came up and you never volunteered it. No one ever asked what you were practicing, or, in Karkat’s case, demanded to know. You bite your lip before suddenly blurting out, “If you give me your pesterchum, I’ll send you a recording.” There. It’s out there. You’ve been building up the nerve to ask for Dave’s number or pesterchum or, well, anything really. Jade, Rose and Kanaya simply took your phone and input their numbers once it became clear you were a friend, so you didn’t have to worry about it, and Karkat had demanded your pesterchum so you never had to ask anyone but Dave.

“It’s turntechGodhead,” he replies easily.

“That’s really weird,” you tell him blankly.

He frowns defensively. “Well, what’s yours?”

“ectoBiologist. What a fuckin dweeb, right?” Karkat chimes in again. Dave’s brows furrow.

“You have his Pesterchum?” he demands.

“Yeah. I got it the day he moved in. Next door neighbors, remember?” he says.

“Oh,” he says, looking a bit nonplussed. “Well, then.”

You cram the rest of your fries into your mouth, suddenly aware that somewhere in their argument, they both managed to finish their food. “You guys ready to go back?” you ask.

“Yeah. Come on, I’ll take ya’ll home,” he says. You smile. Most of your friends hide their Texan very well. It’s not hard for most of them, seeing as they moved from other places and haven’t been here long enough to gain one, but Dave and his Bro have lived there forever and it’s a little harder for them. As it is, Dave’s voice is always laced by the accent. Occasionally, when he’s arguing or nervous about something, it comes in strong. You think it’s cute. Er. Not cute. You mean funny.

Yeah.

Anyway.

After another death defying trip in Dave’s candy red truck of doom, he drops you and Karkat off in front of your house. You hop out, making some comment about how you’re surprised you lived, and Dave flips you off in farewell. You return the gesture as Dave swings his car around and speeds off.

“Bye, Karkat!” you call, waving to him. “Pester me, kay?”

“Sure, sure,” he says, heading towards his house. You jog to the door, unlocking it and stepping inside.

Ahhhh, sweet, sweet air conditioning.

Your father still isn’t home, so you kick off your shoes at the door and head into your room to shuck off your jeans. You plop down on your desk chair and turn on your desktop computer, tapping your fingers impatiently while you wait for it to load.

When your screen finally wheezes to life, you click on Pesterchum and idly scroll through your list of chums. Rose and Karkat are online, Jade and Kanaya are offline, along with most of your Washington friends. You’re not that disappointed—you’re not really in the mood to talk to your friends from Washington anyway. All they ever say is that they wish you were there and all it ever does is make you sad.

You click the ‘add chum’ button and quickly add Dave to your list of chums. The request is accepted almost immediately and you take a second to admire that it took Dave approximately four and a half minutes to get home, walk up eight flights of steps and get to his computer. Amazing.

\-- ectoBiologist [EB] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG] --

EB: hey dave!

TG: yo egbert

EB: whats up?

TG: i was talking to you .04 seconds ago john

TG: you know literally everything that is up

EB: well it seemed like a good place to start a conversation!!

TG: how about ‘hey dave! heres that piano recording i promised! :B’

EB: hey dave! heres that piano recording i promised! :B

\-- ectoBiologist [EB] sent turntechGodhead [TG] ‘pianorecordingforthejackass.mp3’ –

TG: you made a piano recording for karkat?

EB: ha. ha. just play it dumbass!

There’s a long pause and you bite your lip a little nervously. What if Dave says it sucks? Why did you think this was a good idea? You told him you weren’t Mozart but what if he made assumptions anyway? Ugh, you hate showing people your work! That’s why you never did it in Washington. You’re not sure why you thought it was a good idea to tell people here. Ugh!

TG: alright what the hell is this

Your stomach drops through the floor. Past the floor. Down to China and then past that into space. Oh, God he hates it.

EB: what’s wrong?

TG: haha real funny

TG: whos playing this for real

EB: … me?

TG: no fuckin way

EB: i promise, its me ill show you when you come over or whatever.

TG: this is too good for a wee little egbert to be playing this

TG: i call trickery

Suddenly you’re laughing in relief. He wasn’t saying it was bad—he thought it was too good! Oh, man. You grin.

EB: well you can hang up because it’s really just me.

TG: bullshit send me something else

EB: fine!

\-- ectoBiologist [EB] sent turntechGodhead [TG] ‘chopsuey.mp3’ –

TG: alright now i know youre joking

TG: you cant

TG: thats not even

TG: hands dont even do that john

TG: its not possible this is a lie

TG: why do you send me lies john

EB: its not a lie!

And just like that, you’re talking just as casually as you and Karkat do. You wonder why you were even worried to ask for his Pesterchum to begin with. The two of you talk straight into the night about anything and everything—movies (he has terrible taste), music (even worse) and video games (the absolute worst—you’re amazed he has any brain cells left with the games he plays). You don’t even notice how late it is until you hear your dad come in the door. You blink, looking at the clock. It’s almost midnight. Your dad’s been working on a project with a team of other business people, so he’s been having a lot of late nights lately. Normally you’re in bed by the time he gets home.

EB: dude it’s like midnight.

TG: amazing clock reading skills egbert

TG: gold stars all around

TG: youre such a good noodle

EB: did you just make a spongebob reference?

TG: what no

TG: go to sleep youre clearly hallucinating

EB: you’ve been up as long as i have! why don’t you go to sleep, huh?

TG: striders dont need sleep

TG: we run on pure irony and awesomeness

EB: well im an egbert and i need sleep. so good night.

TG: night

TG: sweet dreams or whatever

EB: back at you dude!

\-- ectoBiologist [EB] stopped pestering turntechGodhead [TG] –


	5. what even is a shill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dave POV!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy carp did I really just update twice in the same month? It's a miracle!! :o

Your name is Dave Strider, and you definitely do _not_ like John Egbert.

You mean, he’s a cool guy and you’re definitely bros, but you don’t like  _like_ him.

Really. You don’t.

It doesn’t matter that he has eyes the color of the sky or that his goofy grin sets your heart aflutter or that he laughs at your dumb jokes or that he always knows what you mean under your bullshit or that his dumb jokes put you in stitches. You’re also not jealous of Karkat for knowing almost everything about John. That would be weird. You’re not even sure why you had that ludicrously untrue thought.

It’s also a highly untrue statement to say that you keep thinking of the arcade, when you perilously saved John from lightly bruising his ass from the two inch fall off of the dance platform. You haven’t even given another thought to the way he grabbed your shirt or the way he leaned into your arm or the way those blue eyes locked onto yours, wide and surprised.

Nope. Not at all.

You groan, rolling over and slamming your face into your pillow. Surprisingly, suffocation doesn’t help either, so you stand up. It’s one o’ clock on Sunday afternoon and therefore technically morning because no one _really_ wakes up before one on the weekends unless they have to. You tug off your pajama bottoms and fling them off to the side, pulling on a pair of black jeans and your long sleeved record shirt. You pull on socks and shoes and grab your katana before going in search of Bro.

You have to be honest, you’re not in _love_ with strifing with Bro. Really, you rarely search it out. You’re not crazy, you don’t love getting your ass kicked. On the rare occasions you do challenge him, you always have something on your mind. You know it’s the only way he’ll talk to you about feelings. Most of the time after a strife, he knows what you’re worried about and gives you advice without you explicitly asking. It’s almost always good advice.

So, you search for Bro. You try his room first, opening the door without knocking. You lean in, sure this will initiate the battle you want, but he’s nowhere to be found. His room is a hot mess of robotics, smuppets and turntables galore. You shut the door and head towards the kitchen. You pause, glancing at the ceiling with the drawstring door. Damn. No message for you to meet him on the roof, either. He’s probably out. Or he knows you’re looking for him and he’s not in the mood. Or he’s in the can, you guess. You sigh, flinging your katana onto the counter in disgust at your failed plan.

Maybe Rose will have time for you.

You plod over to Rose’s room like the shmuck you are and pause at the door to tap your knuckles against it.

“Enter,” Rose calls pleasantly. You open the door and step inside, shutting it behind you.

“Hey,” you say.

“To what do I owe the pleasure, Strider?” Rose asks, smiling slightly. It’s that little slightly smug smile that means she knows exactly why you’re here. It’s maddening.

You don’t give her the satisfaction of telling her your problems, instead wiggling your hand in a noncommittal gesture. “Bored. Sup with you?” you ask, grabbing her computer chair and swinging it around so you can sit down in it backwards. You rest your chin on the back of the chair.

Rose holds up the book in her hands. “Well, I was reading,” she says, raising a brow.

“Ah. Sounds intense,” you reply. You glance around and your brows furrow as you realize… Rose’s room is kind of a mess. You mean, it’s always a little messy. Rose is never as organized as she seems, but it’s a lot worse than usual. Clothes litter the floor in a higher volume than normal, there’s a tipped over stack of books next to her bed and you see some tangled yarn discarded next to her bed, as though she had been too frustrated to untangle it and instead flung it under the bed. You give her a look. “Did you lose something?” you ask.

Rose’s expression immediately goes blank, which in Lalonde means ‘Mind your own business.’ “No,” she replies coolly. “I just have not had the chance to straighten up. I wasn’t aware I was to have company today.” Her phone suddenly buzzes, and she closes her eyes, letting out a short breath. She spares it a glance before locking it back, not replying.

You forgot about her troubles with Kanaya for a moment. Wow. You’re kind of an asshole.

“Trouble in paradise?” you ask. To anyone else it would seem condescending, but to Rose it’s an offer to talk. She acknowledges your gesture with a headshake.

“Nothing I am incapable of handling.” She gives you a sly grin. “How about you? Trouble in paradise, Strider?”

Dammit. She knows you too well. Abruptly you realize you don’t want to talk about this with Rose. You don’t want her to know you like John, even though you’re fairly certain she would have some quality advice for you. You don’t want to see the raised eyebrows and that smug smile that says ‘I totally knew you liked him all along.’

“Nothing I’m incapable of handling,” you quote, raising a brow.

She smiles. “In time, then,” she agrees. Her phone buzzes, four times in a row. A call. “Do you mind, David? This is the ninth time she’s called. I rather think I need to answer.”

“My name isn’t—you know what, it doesn’t even matter. Sure. Don’t give in too easily, kay? She could’ve stayed,” you advise, hopping to your feet. “Good luck,” you say, heading to the door.

“And to you,” she replies.

You shut the door behind you, then sigh. Now what? Bro’s out, Rose is busy. You could get on your computer and talk to Jade, but then you run the risk of John pestering you. Or Karkat. You sigh again, then head towards your pseudo Mom’s room. You knock on the door, torn between hoping she answers and hoping she doesn’t.

She does. The door swings inwards, revealing a very tipsy Roxy. She has a bottle of tequila in her hand, her other hand bracing herself against the door. Even while relaxing, she wore five inch heels and a business dress, not a hair out of place. Her brows shoot up at the sight of you and you give her a casual smile.

“Hey, Rox. Sup?” you ask.

“Davey!” she grins widely, tossing an arm around you. You wince as the tequila sloshes down your back, soaking into your shirt, but you can’t help but smile at her enthusiasm. At least someone wants to see you.

“Hey, hey, it’s getting a little titanic out here, can you watch the tequila?” you ask, still grinning slightly so she knows you’re not mad. She pulls her arm away, glaring at the bottle as if it were the offender.

“Ah, damn, sorry Davey. I’m watching a movie—it just started, you wanna come watch it with me?” she asks, peering at you hopefully. You nod. You’re not in the mood to be alone and watching a movie with Roxy is better than anything you could’ve hoped for.

She steps back inside her room, gesturing you in with a concerning wobble. “Welcome to casa de Rox-ay,” she says with grandeur. You chuckle, stepping inside. You glance around, curious. You rarely go into Roxy’s room, but it looks much the same as ever. Empty bottles litter the room, along with random gadgets and thick tomes about science and wizards alike. Her bed is centered in the middle of the room, covered by a thick pink comforter. She has a large plasma TV hooked to the wall, paused a couple of seconds into the movie. You grin when you see the grainy black and white picture, recognizing it immediately for the masterpiece it is.

“ _House on Haunted Hill?_ ” you ask.

She grins. “It’s my favorite,” she says, plopping onto the bed. She scoots back until she’s against the multitude of pillows, then pats the spot next to her. You drop down next to her, snuggling into a body pillow with a large cat on it as Roxy hits the play button, allowing Frederick Loren to explain the rules of the night.

Roxy takes a pull of the tequila then offers it to you. You raise a brow. You’ve drunk alcohol before, alone, with friends and even with Roxy, but Bro hated when Roxy gave you drinks. She purses her lips for a second, clearly thinking along the same lines you are. She looks around for a minute and then leans in, “I think we just won’t tell your bro,” she suggests.

“My lips are locked tighter than Fort Knox,” you reply solemnly.

Roxy grins. “Well, shit, that sounds pretty tight. Here you go, sailor,” she says, offering you the bottle again. You take a long drag, wincing slightly at the burn in your throat. This isn’t top quality stuff, but you don’t really care. You pass it back to her.

“So… wanna tell me what’s wrong?” Roxy asks before taking a swallow. She offers it back to you.

“Nothing’s wrong,” you reply automatically. You drink and pass back, feeling a pattern forming.

“Suuure there isn’t, Davey. You know I’ll listen,” she says, sincerely. She takes a long drink, letting you mull it over for a moment.

“There’s… this guy,” you say hesitantly. She doesn’t look surprised, although you’ve never actively shown interest in men before. Then again, you’ve never actively shown interest in women before either.

“Ah. Boy troubles,” she says. “I can drink to that.” And she does. She holds out the bottle to you and you take a longer drink. You’re feeling rather pleasant now. A little warm and floaty and pleasantly muddled.

“Tell me about it. It’s just, I guess. I like him, but I don’t really know him that much, you know? I mean, I like what I know about him, which is that he’s a dork with a _fine_ ass, Roxy you should see this boy’s ass. It’s the ass of the Gods. Like, the Gods looked down at Egbert and went ‘Hey, we should forge this ass ourselves. It will be a special ass. The uber ass. The ultimate ass,’” you ramble.

She snickers. “Did you really just say ‘the uber ass’ without even cracking a smile?” she asks.

“Don’t sass me, Lalonde, you have not seen the uber ass therefore you are not allowed to comment on the uber ass,” you reply, taking another drink. She grins, taking the bottle from you.

“Okay, I concede. Uber ass. What else do you know about this Egbert kid?” she asks. The movie is background noise at this point, filled with fake screams and dramatic voice overs.

You think for a moment. Alright, what sums up _John_? “He’s a dork. He likes stupid Nic Cage movies and he codes. He likes DDR of all things—I played against him at the arcade. He actually beat me,” you say a bit incredulously. You usually win in things that involve speed and coordination. In your defense, it was really distracting to have John dancing next to you. Plus, you were shaken by the close proximity of a couple of minutes ago. At least, that’s what you keep telling yourself. “And… Rox, he plays piano. Like Mozart levels of piano. How much more teen romance movie can you fuckin’ get?”

“Seriously? Damn, he sounds like a catch. How much competition you got?” she asks, raising her brows.

You bite your lip. This is the part you didn’t wanna talk about. “Right now, it looks like just… Karkat,” you mutter, looking away.

Roxy’s brows shoot up to her hairline. “Oh, no, Davey.”

“I know. I know. I should back off and give Karkat his fair chance, right? Bro code, plus I mean, Karkat met him first. They’re next door neighbors,” you say, groaning. You put your hands over your face. “I don’t know what to do! I want to go after John, but I can’t do that to Karkat. He never likes anyone.”

“Neither do you, Davey. If you have your heart set on John…”

“Then I should put the moves on him and risk losing Karkat as a friend?” you ask a bit hopelessly.

“Maybe not… Talk to Karkat. Tell him you’re interested and that you’re gonna make a move and if he doesn’t make one first, that’s not your fault,” she suggests. She takes a swig of the drink as all of a sudden the TV lets out a high pitched scream, making you both jump.

Oh. Right. You’re watching a horror movie.

You both laugh sheepishly, silently agreeing not to mention it. “Well, that’s good avice—advice Rox. I’ll talk to him about it,” you say. It comes to your attention that words are getting a little harder to spit out and you think you’re falling somewhere near tipsy. Maybe a little more than tipsy.

“Good. And don’t feel bad if John chooses you. Karkat will find someone else. He’s a hella cute little thang and he’s got a good personality under all the shouty,” she tells you. You nod slowly. Okay. You can do this. You can _do_ this.

You watch the rest of the movie, passing back and forth the bottle and getting progressively less coherent as the time passes. At one point you think you make a rap about haunted houses and Roxy makes one about old guys with curly ‘staches. You’re both in stitches by the time the credits finally roll. It’s only about three in the afternoon—not late at all. Roxy asks if you want to marathon Lord of the Rings and shit, who can turn that down? You start a drinking game where you take a shot every time Frodo says ‘GANDALF!’ and you only manage to get through the first movie before you realize you’ve shot past tipsy and drunk to straight up smashed. Roxy’s somehow still in barely drunk zone and you’re very impressed.

“Hooooly shit Ropy—Rosy—Roxy I… I am very not sobobers,” you tell her.

She snickers. “That’s… very true,” she agrees. Then you’re both laughing, leaning against each other. Roxy spills some more tequila on your leg and you both burst out laughing again even though it’s not really funny. In fact, your leg is wet and it’s really uncomfortable. Roxy pauses the movie, since you’re not listening to it anyway, and you both laugh until you’re crying. Roxy sets aside the bottle, holding her sides. When you finally contain yourselves, you groan. You push up your sunglasses up and rub your eyes.

“I need to… I… bluh,” you say. “I gotta talk to Karkat, don’t I?” you ask.

She smiles. “Yeah. Maaaaybe not right now though,” she suggests. You laugh. Good point. You probably shouldn't talk to anyone right now, for that matter. You’d just ramble at them until you passed out if you tried right now. It’s around six—you can probably get back to your room without being detected by Bro. Roxy smiles, seeing the calculations you’re making in your head.

“If you hurry. He had a gig but he should be back in… oh, ten minutes,” she says. You smile. Roxy is great. She gives you a hug in farewell and you stand up, swaying slightly. You hurry over to the door, only tripping a couple of times before you get out of the room.

You take four tottering steps across the hall, yank open the door to your room and stumble inside. You swing the door shut behind you and stagger over towards your computer. You trip over one of the many wires in your room and go sprawling. Somehow you find this hilarious. You can’t stop laughing, despite the fact that your face is pressed against a wire and it’s a little uncomfortable. You finally manage to get to your feet, then fall into your chair. You push your glasses up to rub your eyes, but your glasses tip over the back of your head and fall to the floor. You can’t bother to care.

You move the mouse on your computer and squint against the sudden brightness of your monitor. You click on pesterchum and see that you have about four people messaging you. You see flashing message bubbles next to Kanaya, Karkat, Jade and… John. You smile and decide to save John’s for last. You click into Kanaya’s.

\-- grimAuxiliatrix [GA] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG] –

GA: Dave Please

GA: I Just Need A Moment To Explain Myself

GA: Please Just Tell Rose To Allow Me This

GA: She Will Listen To You

You sigh and click out of her message. You don’t want to deal with that right now. Besides, you bet Rose has already ironed it out with her anyway.

You click into Jade’s message.

\-- gardenGnostic [GG] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG] –

GG: hey cool kid! B)

GG: so we’re doing movie night at john’s house this friday!

GG: we werrreee gonna ask what you wanted to do, but you decided to just not talk to anyone all day! :(

GG: rude!

You roll your eyes and click to Karkat’s message. It’s a wall of gray text. You catch the word ‘John’ more than once and you sigh and click back out. You don’t want to have that conversation yet. You grin, clicking into John’s messages. As you read through his insistent nudges, you forget why it was a bad idea to talk to people. Who cares about logic when you can talk to John, right?

\-- ectoBiologist [EB] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG] –

EB: dave!

EB: dave get on!!

EB: dave we’re trying to figure out where to do movie night where are you?

EB: dave strider get your cool kid ass on the computer right now!

EB: uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh! fine! we’ll just have it at my house then.

\-- ectoBiologist [EB] is an idle chum! –

TG: hey john

EB: dave!! where have you been its been like seven hours!

TG: i was with rosxy

TG: we watcheld house on haunted shill

TG: hill

TG: shill haha

TG: what even is a shill

EB: dave are you drunk?

TG: why would you evens ask thaat im nto drunk

TG: im perfsectly sober

EB: uhuh. suuuuure you are dave. go to bed before you knock yourself out or something.

TG: i would never dos omething that unacool

TG: im offesnded

TG: you may kbe cute and alls but youre gonna sget smacked if you keep up this sass egfbert

EB: … you think im cute?

TG: what

TG: no

TG: i mean

TG: no in the good wasy

TG: i think

EB: …

TG: wow jogn why are you keeping me ups o late

TG: shhhh

TG: its sleep times

EB: wait! dave!!

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering ectoBiologist [EB] –

EB: it’s only six in the afternoon! D:

Shit.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, I couldn't do this without my best friend, Denver. [doubledgrump.tumblr.com]  
> If you'd like to reach me outside of the comments, my ask box is always open. [lylarica.tumblr.com]


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